Deck 1: The Sociological Imagination, and Sociological Research

Question 1

John Porter conducted a well-known Canadian study on social inequality and ethnicity.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

As a discipline, sociology emerged in the nineteenth century.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

To what does the term anomie refer?

A) A classification scheme containing two or more categories.
B) A model that serves as a measuring rod against which actual cases can be evaluated.
C) A type of suicide that is based on depression.
D) A loss of direction that is felt in a society when social control of individual behaviour has become ineffective.

Answer 3

A loss of direction that is felt in a society when social control of individual behaviour has become ineffective.

Question 4

According to C. Wright Mills, is a private trouble?

A) a problem that can be explained wholly by an individual's personality
B) a problem that is not discussed with anyone
C) a problem that affects an individual
D) a difficulty related to a cultural taboo

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT included in Max Weber's theory of power?

A) anomie
B) ownership of the means of production
C) organizational resources
D) social status

Question 6

Throughout sociology's history, a recurring theme common to all perspectives has been the idea that sociological theory and research should contribute to:

A) positive social change
B) pure science
C) applied sociology
D) basic sociology

Question 7

Which of the following statements does NOT represent how the study of sociology can affect social policy?

A) sociology can be used to evaluate the success of public policy programs and the impact of the social changes felt by the policies.
B) sociological concepts enhance critical thinking skills which help us to better understand current public policy debates.
C) applying the sociological imagination to enhance our understanding of current social issues globally.
D) studying the physical features of society and nature together, focusing on how they interact can lead to social policy change.

Question 8

In Karl Marx's analysis, by what is social inequality determined?

A) The religious and the non-religious who clash in pursuit of their own interests.
B) Men and women who clash in pursuit of their own interests.
C) Ownership, or lack thereof, of key material resources.
D) Blacks and Whites who clash in pursuit of their own racial interests.

Question 9

Karl Marx was concerned about loss of control over our creative human capacity to produce, separation from the products we make, and isolation from our fellow workers. What did he call this?

A) alienation
B) anomie
C) capitalism
D) segregation

Question 10

Which social scientists would be most interested in comparing the damage done by the 2009 Manitoba floods to that of other twentieth century floods in the same watershed?

A) geologists
B) historians
C) anthropologists
D) civil engineers

Question 11

Which of the following countries rates HIGHEST on the Happiness Index?

A) Norway
B) United States
C) Burundi
D) Columbia

Question 12

Which of the following terms refers to the freedom individuals have to choose and to act?

A) autonomous power
B) agency
C) conditioned resourcefulness
D) social statics

Question 13

Many sociologists tend to favour one sociological perspective over the others because:

A) it is not possible to utilize more than one theory at a time when doing research.
B) a theoretical orientation influences a sociologist's approach to a research problem in a number of ways.
C) focusing on one particular theoretical orientation gives researchers the broadest understanding of an issue in society.
D) each theoretical orientation supports certain issues and cannot be utilized in studying all social issues.

Question 14

Which of the following sociologists popularized the dramaturgical approach, which compares everyday life to the setting of the theatre?

A) Jane Addams
B) Erving Goffman
C) C. Wright Mills
D) Émile Durkheim

Question 15

One of the main tasks of sociology is to reveal and report the degree of which of the following?

A) genetic influences
B) social inequality
C) mental disturbance
D) individual inferiority

Question 16

Why was Émile Durkheim's explanation of suicide scientific?

A) He worked in a university setting.
B) He divided suicide into four distinctive categories.
C) He developed conclusions based on systematic examination of data.
D) He carefully studied the personalities of hundreds of suicide victims.

Question 17

Émile Durkheim is an example of a sociologist guided by which perspective?

A) conflict perspective
B) feminist perspective
C) functionalist perspective
D) interactionist perspective

Question 18

A study that examines the relationship between income and early education, which finds that children who attended schools with a maximum class size of 25 from grades K - 6 have higher average lifetime earnings than those who went to schools with larger class sizes, and which concludes by advocating educational funding reforms, is likely done from which perspective?

A) interactionist perspective
B) feminist perspective
C) functionalist perspective
D) conflict perspective

Question 19

Which sociological perspective would view sports as promoting an overall feeling of unity and social solidarity?

A) interactionist perspective
B) feminist perspective
C) functionalist perspective
D) conflict perspective

Question 20

Which of the following is NOT true of sociology?

A) It can be used to predict the behaviour of individual members of social groups.
B) It focuses on how major social institutions and individuals interact.
C) It focuses on how social relationships influence people's behaviour.
D) It is the systematic study of the relationship between the individual and society and of the consequences of difference.

Question 21

Who introduced the concept of anomie into sociology?

A) Auguste Comte
B) Émile Durkheim
C) C. Wright Mills
D) Max Weber

Question 22

Judge the following statement based on the following criteria: In applying the sociological imagination to the issue of unemployment, it can be stated that a country's unemployment rate is a public issue while an individual who loses her job is experiencing private trouble. Thus we can assume that the relationship between the society and an individual is a reciprocal one.

A) Good (the statement is correct, but the assumption about the concept is incorrect)
B) Excellent (the statement is correct, with a clear and correct assumption about the concept)
C) Mediocre (the statement is correct, and the assumption about the concept is irrelevant)
D) Unacceptable (the statement is incorrect and the explanation is unclear and irrelevant)

Question 23

According to the textbook, which of the following is true?

A) Men speak more during the course of a day than women do.
B) Men speak more to other men than women do to other women.
C) Women speak more during the course of a day than men do.
D) Men and women speak about the same amount during the course of a day.

Question 24

Which of the following statements about Canadian sociology and sociologists is true?

A) Erving Goffman, though born in the United States, spent most of his research career working in Canada.
B) French Canadian sociology has historically been more politically engaged than that done in English Canada.
C) Much of the work in early Canadian sociology focused on distinguishing between Canadians and Americans.
D) John Porter is best known for his groundbreaking work on inequality between men and women in Canada.

Question 25

Which of the following would a natural scientist be most likely to study?

A) The interaction between men and women on a college campus.
B) Food preparation among a tribal group in New Guinea.
C) The clothing patterns of a group of people during a 100-year period.
D) Rock formations and composition in the Grand Canyon.

Question 26

Why is sociology considered a science?

A) Sociologists receive government funding for research projects.
B) Sociologists teach at respected universities.
C) Sociologists engage in organized and systematic study of phenomena to enhance understanding.
D) Sociologists construct middle-range theories to explain social behaviour.

Question 27

Which social science would be interested in conducting research on the cost of the damage from the 2009 Manitoba floods?

A) political science
B) sociology
C) economics
D) history

Question 28

The example of preparing a hamburger, given in the textbook, best illustrates which of the following?

A) The ingenuity necessary to live independently.
B) The benefits of vegetarianism.
C) The precarious nature of civilization.
D) The reliance of human beings on cumulative knowledge and collective resources.

Question 29

Émile Durkheim's study of suicide related suicide rates to which of the following?

A) climatic conditions (e.g., oppressive heat, heavy rain, cold winters)
B) personal stress
C) the extent to which people were integrated into the group life of a society
D) cultural values

Question 30

Which of the following statements best outlines the interrelationship between the feminist, functionalist and conflict perspectives?

A) the functionalist and conflict perspectives both focus on maintaining stability in society and consensus among members of the society, while the feminist perspective emphasizes the distribution of power and the allocation of resources among the members of a society.
B) the feminist perspective shares the conflict perspective's attention to inequality, going beyond its focus on social class to address the role of gender in creating and sustaining inequality. In this regard, feminist theory has little in common with the functionalist perspective which shares the conflict perspective's focus on analyzing large-scale, society-wide patterns of social behaviour.
C) the conflict perspective focuses on an analysis of social order, the functionalist perspective focuses on an analysis of social inequality, and the feminist perspective incorporates each of these themes into its perspective with an extended focus addressing the role of gender inequality.
D) both the feminist and functionalist perspectives generalize about everyday forms of social interaction in order to explain society as a whole, while the conflict perspective considers how the status quo is established and maintained, and who benefits and who suffers from the existing system.

Question 31

Which of the following is NOT a key component of the definition of sociology?

A) the individual and society
B) the hierarchy of needs
C) the consequences of difference
D) systematic study

Question 32

Which of the following would a social scientist be most likely to study?

A) The composition of a meteorite discovered in a remote area of Siberia.
B) The newest procedure in heart transplant surgery.
C) The reasons for the decreasing birth rate in Canada.
D) The possibility of life on Mars.

Question 33

Which of the following statements about the sociological imagination is true?

A) The sociological imagination is indifferent towards individual experience.
B) The sociological imagination factors social issues into the explanation of individual psychological perspectives.
C) The sociological imagination factors individual psychological perspectives into the explanation of social issues.
D) The sociological imagination is relevant only to what is experienced collectively by a whole society.

Question 34

Which statement about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is true?

A) The foreign aid received was more than adequate to rebuild.
B) Because it occurred in a poor part of the world, global stock markets were heavily impacted.
C) The tsunami disaster cannot be related to globalization.
D) More men than women survived.

Question 35

Why would it be beneficial for a nursing student to take a sociology course?

A) To provide knowledge and information to justify and validate political and corporate agendas.
B) To use sociology in a way that provides practical knowledge relevant to human behaviour and organizations.
C) To research the limits of social engineering.
D) To develop a theoretical model of "the good society".

Question 36

Which sociologist said that "Sociology teaches how groups function and how to make use of the laws governing the way they function so as to try to circumvent them"?

A) W. E. B. Du Bois
B) C. Wright Mills
C) Pierre Bourdieu
D) Max Weber

Question 37

The work of Max Weber links to that of Karl Marx in which of the following ways?

A) Weber, building on Marx's basic "laws of society" introduced the significance of inequality and power into the understanding of sociology.
B) Weber argued that Marx's concept of alienation or an individual's loss of control over his world, led to an experience Weber called anomie, the loss of direction felt in society when social control of individual behaviour has become ineffective.
C) Weber theorized that there are a number of determinants of power which based on Marx's concept of social class, extended to include both social status, and organizational resources.
D) Weber extends Marx's work beyond the study of social class to an analysis of how issues like social class, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality and age influence the opportunities of individuals in society.

Question 38

Discuss what separates sociology from common sense. Be sure to give some
examples of how sociological research might dispel commonly accepted views.

Question 39

Summarize the contributions of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx to the field of sociology. Be sure to note any theoretical differences they may have had with one another.

Question 40

Different sociological perspectives ask different questions of the social world. In what way are the different approaches complementary, and how can combining the insights of different perspectives lead to a more thorough knowledge and understanding of a phenomenon?

Question 41

Explain the similarities and differences between the three major sociological
perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism. Identify which perspectives use a macro level or a micro level of analysis.

Question 42

Content analysis of recent films has been used to demonstrate an increase in the amount of smoking shown in motion pictures.

Question 43

Which number would be considered the mode of the following: 10-10-9-9-8-8-7-7-7-6-5?

A) 8
B) 10
C) 5
D) 7

Question 44

Interviews have the advantage of a better response rate than self-administered questionnaires Interviews have disadvantages as well. Which of the following is a disadvantage of an interview?

A) The gender, race, appearance, or other characteristics of the interviewer may influence responses of the research subjects.
B) Interview results are more difficult to interpret than self-administered results.
C) A research subject is more likely to share underlying feelings and reasons when completing a written questionnaire than when being interviewed by a skillful interviewer.
D) A research subject is more likely to complete a written questionnaire than accept a personal request for an interview.

Question 45

What is a research design?

A) A detailed plan or method for scientifically obtaining data.
B) An explanation of an abstract concept that is specific enough to allow a researcher to measure the concept.
C) An indicator of attitudes, behaviour, or characteristics of people or organizations.
D) A speculative statement about the relationship between two or more variables.

Question 46

The statement "Most homeless people are not mentally ill" is an example of which of the following?

A) an operational definition
B) a variable
C) an experiment
D) a hypothesis

Question 47

The greater likelihood of a person who is less integrated into society committing suicide illustrates which of the following?

A) an undefined variable
B) causal logic
C) a social fact
D) a defined variable

Question 48

Your class is doing a research study on the academic success of college and university students. It has been suggested that two of the issues that many students face today which may affect their level of academic success are being employed in order to pay tuition, and peer pressure to party. Answer the following five questions designed to assess your ability to apply steps in the research process.
Analysis of the data suggests that the more hours a student works, the less they feel pressured by their peers to party. This is an example of which type of relationship?

A) reliability
B) hypothetical
C) causal logic
D) correlation

Question 49

Your class is doing a research study on the academic success of college and university students. It has been suggested that two of the issues that many students face today which may affect their level of academic success are being employed in order to pay tuition, and peer pressure to party. Answer the following five questions designed to assess your ability to apply steps in the research process.
Which of the following statements represents a valid hypothesis in which to begin the research study?

A) Students' academic success may be affected by either the amount of peer pressure or hours of employment
B) The higher the peer pressure and the more hours a student works negatively affects his/her academic success
C) College and university students' academic success is dependent upon the amount of peer pressure they feel or the distance they travel to work.
D) The amount of peer pressure and number of hours of employment affect a student's academic success

Question 50

Sociology, at its core, represents a conversation between what?

A) reliability and validity
B) dependent and independent variables
C) application and understanding
D) theory and research

Question 51

Surveys most often collect and report data primarily in numerical form. What kind of data is this?

A) qualitative
B) ethnographic
C) quantitative
D) descriptive

Question 52

What is the initial challenge faced by participant observers such as William F. Whyte?

A) Maintaining their objectivity when studying people face-to-face.
B) Formulating the sequence of questions in an interview.
C) Gaining acceptance into an unfamiliar group.
D) Determining which group will be the experimental group.

Question 53

Religiosity is a term for how religious an individual is. Why might it be difficult for researchers to construct a valid measure of religiosity?

A) Not all religions have the same view of the divine.
B) Most people in modern society are not religious.
C) Different religions impose different requirements on a pious adherent.
D) Different religions have different sacred texts.

Question 54

Why was Russel Ogden, a graduate student at Simon Fraser University, initially found to be in contempt of court by the Vancouver coroner's office?

A) Disagreements with university administrators over the management of sensitive research data.
B) Refusal, when subpoenaed, to break the confidentiality promised to his research subjects.
C) Collection of personal information from vulnerable persons.
D) Concealing information about a suspicious death.

Question 55

Sociologists, like Peter and Patricia Adler, systematically gather our stories together through research and make sense of them with which of the following?

A) feminism
B) theory
C) anomie
D) globalism

Question 56

Your class is doing a research study on the academic success of college and university students. It has been suggested that two of the issues that many students face today which may affect their level of academic success are being employed in order to pay tuition, and peer pressure to party. Answer the following five questions designed to assess your ability to apply steps in the research process. The class has decided that they would like to determine if there is a relationship between academic success, peer pressure and employment among their school's 15,000 students. What is the most effective research design?

A) have a random sample of students meet for a face-to-face interview
B) design an experiment that compares students who are employed and students who claim to feel peer pressure
C) observe groups of students' behaviour at a party
D) have a random sample of students complete a survey questionnaire

Question 57

Which of the following best describes the notion that the higher the level of one's education, the higher one's income level will be?

A) correlation
B) independent variables
C) hypothesis
D) operational definition

Question 58

Which group of sociologists has been most influential in broadening the scope of sociological research to include traditionally marginalized groups?

A) functionalist theorists
B) interactionist theorists
C) conflict theorists
D) feminist theorists

Question 59

Which of the following is true of secondary analysis?

A) It is easier to customize than a questionnaire.
B) It relies more heavily on personal relationships than do other forms of analysis.
C) It is more reliable than other forms of research.
D) It is more cost-effective than generating original data.

Question 60

Which of the following is true of participant observation research?

A) It tends to be less useful than interviews.
B) It tends to be more expensive than large-scale survey research.
C) It relies less on personal relationships than other research techniques do.
D) It tends to be more time consuming than secondary analysis.

Question 61

By whom was "value neutrality" in social science research initially advocated?

A) William Zellner
B) W. E. B. Du Bois
C) Max Weber
D) Émile Durkheim

Question 62

What is the term for the single most common value in a series of scores?

A) median
B) percentage
C) mode
D) mean

Question 63

Individuals who have divorced parents are more likely to divorce than individuals who have parents who did not divorce. Of what is this statement an example?

A) theory
B) social fact
C) natural law
D) correlation

Question 64

What is one of the major challenges of participant observation?

A) Finding a group to study.
B) Preparing results.
C) Maintaining a degree of detachment.
D) Obtaining university approval.

Question 65

A group of researchers designs a study to examine the effect of homeschooling on the academic performance of students in university. The researchers control for parental income and for gender. What is the independent variable in this study?

A) gender
B) parental income
C) academic performance
D) homeschooling

Question 66

Information on the top names for newborns in Canada and Quebec illustrates which of the following?

A) Most of the names popular for babies in Quebec are also popular in the rest of the country.
B) Information collected by institutions is of little use for purposes other than those for which it was produced.
C) Given names in most of the country show patterns of ethnic distinctiveness.
D) Parents in Quebec gravitate to culturally distinctive names for their children.

Question 67

Your class is doing a research study on the academic success of college and university students. It has been suggested that two of the issues that many students face today which may affect their level of academic success are being employed in order to pay tuition, and peer pressure to party. Answer the following five questions designed to assess your ability to apply steps in the research process. Identify from the following list which represents the independent and dependent variable respectively.

A) peer pressure; academic success
B) employment; academic success
C) academic success; employment
D) academic success; tuition

Question 68

What is the conventional operational definition of education given by the textbook?

A) IQ
B) years of schooling completed
C) performance score on standardized tests
D) average grade/grade point

Question 69

What was the source of the data collected in the research example, given in the text, on education and income?

A) city directories
B) the Census of Canada
C) internet surveys
D) phone surveys

Question 70

A researcher conducts a study and the results support neither his hypothesis nor his moral standpoint. Because of this, he decides to suppress his findings. This runs contrary to which of the following principles?

A) value neutrality
B) research design
C) confidentiality
D) informed consent

Question 71

What is the term for research that collects information about a group through direct researcher participation?

A) an experiment
B) observation
C) a survey
D) secondary analysis

Question 72

Your class is doing a research study on the academic success of college and university students. It has been suggested that two of the issues that many students face today which may affect their level of academic success are being employed in order to pay tuition, and peer pressure to party. Answer the following five questions designed to assess your ability to apply steps in the research process. Which of the following methods would feminist researchers suggest best allows the voices of the subjects to be heard?

A) observation
B) secondary analysis
C) experimental
D) questionnaires

Question 73

What is the most common type of qualitative research?

A) surveys
B) secondary analysis
C) observation
D) ethnography

Question 74

Sociologists do research, primarily, to do what?

A) Prove their theories correct.
B) Test their hypotheses.
C) Disprove the research of others.
D) Develop operational definitions.

Question 75

By whom was the code of ethics for the discipline of sociology in Canada developed?

A) the Canadian Sociological Association
B) the Auditor General for Canada
C) the Canadian Association of University Professors
D) John Porter.

Question 76

What is a variable?

A) A measurable trait or characteristic that is subject to change under different conditions.
B) A speculative statement about the relationship between two traits.
C) The extent to which a measure provides consistent results.
D) The unintended influence that observers or experiments can have on their subjects.

Question 77

Which of the following is true of valid research measures?

A) they are ethical standards that are followed by sociologists
B) they provide consistent results
C) they are always independent, rather than dependent, variables
D) they accurately measure the phenomenon under study

Question 78

Which of the following is true of most sociologists performing research?

A) They frequently use laboratory experiments because they are a very accurate way of examining human behaviour.
B) They often do not rely on experiments because they generally do not give accurate representations of group behaviour.
C) They do not re-create experimental conditions in the field.
D) They often do not rely on experiments because the presence of a social scientist may affect the behaviour of the people being studied.

Question 79

Which of the following statements is NOT true about the contributions of feminist scholars?

A) They tend to involve and consult their subjects more than other researchers.
B) They have drawn attention to researchers' tendency to overlook women in sociological studies.
C) They have increased global awareness.
D) They do not factor the influence of men into their research.

Question 80

Which of the following survey questions will likely give the researcher the best results?

A) What was your personal income last year?
B) What was your personal income, before taxes, last year?
C) What was your income last year?
D) What was your personal income, before taxes, in the tax year ending December 31^st, 2008?